Sooner or later, everyone in the Foundation asks the same questions. Why we are here. Why we do what we do. Why we are needed. In recent weeks, I think the answer has been clear. Just look at them closely: Panic, doubt, uncertainty, instability. A toy virus infects 0.0025 percent of the population, and they're already wetting their pants. The things we keep here are beyond washing your hands or staying at home. They have no idea, they can't even imagine… but you are different. You've earned the privilege of knowing true horror, or at least, one of its many forms…
This is as far as we can go… you'll have to watch the rest with the security cameras. That's how they enter and leave the containment zone, armed to the teeth. Protective suits, gloves, oxygen tanks. A shower of pure disinfectant at the end of their shifts. A single failure in containment, and everything ends up covered in ultraviolet light combined with chlorine. Mandatory quarantine at the slightest suspicion of infection. Zero tolerance. If after ten days there are no developments, they let them go. Otherwise... let's say they never leave there.
SCP-081. The lab heads say it's a mutation of Marburg with some differences in its RNA. Rats carry it everywhere, but it only infects us through blood or having sex with someone infected. Once it enters the body, SCP-081 infects both fat cells and white blood cells, and forces them to absorb more nutrients than normal, while infected B lymphocytes start producing a modified antibody. Yes, I know. It all sounds very technical, but it's the explanation they gave me in the lab, and it's the same thing you'll find in the file. What you really want to know... is in the phases of the infection.
At first, SCP-081 remains relatively dormant for a week, with some isolated complaints about tiredness. In the second phase is when the hot flashes begin, the “heat waves” so to speak. The infected want to be in slightly cooler places, and their appetite grows. Polyphagia marks the start of the third phase. One of the D-class even tore off a door to get more food than they were given. No matter what they have to do, those infected with SCP-081 need to eat more, their metabolism decreases and they gain weight like crazy.
The last phase activates when the body fat index exceeds 55 percent. The heat waves continue, but the desperate hunger disappears almost immediately. The problem is that at that point many believe they are close to recovering... but it's quite the opposite. Do you know what cell lysis is? It's a rupture, the collapse of their membranes. Well... the entire body goes into lysis, and the modified antibodies serve as a catalyst for the ignition of body fat.
That's right: The body of someone infected with SCP-081 ends up burst and set on fire from the inside out, while the excess fat serves as fuel for the flames. The last phase is completely asymptomatic, and victims have no idea what's going to happen. Moreover, we haven't been able to detect a pattern. The combustion is random... and it turns them into walking bombs.
SCP-081 has been among us for more than a thousand years. In 1763, a certain Jonas Dupont wrote a book, “De Incendiis Corporis Humani Spontaneis”, in which he talks about a man accused of murdering his wife (who suffered from significant overweight), and during his defense he said that “she ended up wrapped in flames alone”. And if you're thinking about the case of Mary Reeser... that was a disaster. Our first detection of SCP-081, and somehow it leaked to the public, with photo included. Several heads rolled.
Population controls on rats have limited the spread of SCP-081, but we still register hundreds of cases a year. The damn bug is incurable... and as if that weren't enough, we have a global obesity epidemic. Can you imagine that amount of fat... burning like napalm in all directions?
